Santa Cruz Warriors Win Season Opener Over Bakersfield Jam

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Nothing but bright lights in Surf City as the hometown Santa Cruz Warriors sailed to a 104-87 win in their season opener against the Bakersfield Jam on Friday at Kaiser Permanente Arena.

It was an emotional night for the team, the organization, and the Santa Cruz community as the team unveiled their 2014-15 NBA D-League championship banner in a pregame ceremony, which was accompanied by a number of the players, coaches, and members of the organization that were a part of the 2014-15 D-League championship team receiving their championship rings.

Here’s a tweet from the official Santa Cruz Warriors Twitter account, capturing the moment in which third year head coach Casey Hill received his championship ring from Kirk Lacob, Santa Cruz Warriors assistant general manager and son of Warriors co-owner, Joe Lacob:

And a closer look at Coach Casey’s ring, photos courtesy of the Santa Cruz Warriors:

Other than D-League President Malcolm Turner and outgoing Santa Cruz Warriors President Jim Weyermann being in attendance for the ring ceremony, sitting in the stands Friday night was Golden State Warriors forward James Michael McAdoo, who played an instrumental part in last year’s D-League title run.

Notably one of the two players ever in NBA history to win both an NBA title and an NBA D-League title in the same season (the other being the legendary Ognjen Kuzmic), McAdoo is likely to stay in his role off the bench with Golden State instead of traveling back and forth between Oakland and Santa Cruz, but there’s no doubt he’ll remain a welcome face in Santa Cruz.

With their adrenaline clearly still pumping from the pregame festivities, the Warriors got it going early, finishing the first quarter up 12 points over Bakserfield. Orton paced the team over the course of the initial segment, scoring 11 points on 4-for-4 shooting after playing just under eight minutes.

The Warriors would continue to deny Bakersfield a chance to lead in the game after the first quarter, refusing to let Bakersfield come within 20 until a fourth quarter surge by the Jam had brought the Warriors’ lead down to 13. Unfortunately for Bakersfield, Santa Cruz would hold on to their lead and come out with the win.

Last year’s Finals MVP, Elliot Williams, led Santa Cruz with 23 points and notched a game-high +/- with +32. Right there with him was new addition, Daniel Orton, who tallied 22 points in his debut. Darington Hobson was also incredibly impressive for the Warriors, putting in a double-double on the night after finishing with 19 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists, two steals and a block.

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Some highs and lows: the Warriors finished the game shooting an incredible 48.8 percent from the field, but they didn’t do too well from behind the arc (5-for-17, 29.4 percent) or from the charity stripe (17-for-24, 70.8 percent), and 20 turnovers is definitely something that Santa Cruz will have to reel in as the season progresses.

They did, however, win the battle of the boards 51-40, and they would finish the game with 60 points in the paint to Bakersfield’s 36. They also had more second chance points (19-6), more assists (26-18), and more steals (14-7).

Per Adam Johnson at SeaDubsCentral.com, the Warriors move to 4-0 in their season openers, winning their third consecutive game against the Bakersfield Jam.

With the back end of a back-to-back scheduled for Saturday, the Warriors now get on their way to Southern California to take on the Los Angeles D-Fenders. Last season, the Warriors played the D-Fenders five times, winning each contest on an average point differential of +19.6. The game will be available to watch on the NBA D-League’s YouTube channel, via www.santacruzbasketball.com.

If you missed Friday’s game, you can view the recorded footage on the D-League’s official Youtube channel, as well.

And in case you missed it, Santa Cruz played their lone preseason game against the Reno Bighorns, blowing them out 133-94.